ice cream

Cupcakes, Ice Cream and Romance.

/ lizziechantree / Leave a comment

Hi everyone. How are you all? I’ve been working on getting two new books ready. The New Girl On Cherry Blossom Lane, will be out in the next month or two and my newsletter subscribers will be the first to see the cover. It will be in their email inboxes in the next week.  The other book is the sequel to my international bestseller, The Little Ice Cream Shop By The Sea. I’m so excited to revisit those sandy shores and it’s given me an excuse to sample some delicious cupcakes and ice cream. Not that I need much persuading! It’s also given me the chance to walk by the sea, sit and reflect for a while and to waggle my toes in the fresh sea air. It was a bit too chilly to take my boots off, so I wriggled my toes in my boots, but the sentiment was there. Lol!

 

I thought I’d share some pictures of the beach to make you smile today. Where do you feel the most creative? The sea often inspires story ideas for me.

Have an amazing rest of the week and don’t forget to pop by my book group for writing support or my Instagram page for bookish inspiration.

 

 

 

Secrets from a book launch.

/ lizziechantree / 5 Comments

Happy new week everyone.  How are you? It’s been a hectic few days here, as my latest romance book, The little ice cream shop by the sea, launched. It’s been fun as I’ve been chatting online about ice cream, people’s favourite flavours and about how many of us wish we could be beside the sea and bathed in sunshine right now. The next best thing is a book full of laughter and romance by the sea!

Some of the interesting flavour combinations that have come up, are Pistachio, honeycomb, fig, lavender, coconut, peanut butter, banana caramel, or dark chocolate. Also some sorbets with alcohol, like Prosecco and cranberry or blackberry. You can join in that chat here on Twitter. My favourite combination is coffee and lemon!

 

It’s very strange  holding a book launch during lockdown. This is the second one I’ve done now, and I have been overwhelmed by the support of my network. This book has reached #1 in more than one category and is now an international bestseller, so I can’t thank you enough for reading, sharing social pages and telling your friends and family about it.  I’ve had people who have never seen my books before, share posts about it with friends too, which I’m very thankful for.  It’s wonderful to meet new readers.

A few things I did for my launch, in case it can help any other authors, are listed here:

  1. I planned my launch weeks ahead of time and scheduled in some social media posts and graphics, so that I had time to chat to readers all day.
  2. I posted photos of my genre and topic and engaged readers in chat about it. The topic I decided on was food, as my book is set in a beachside restaurant. This was a lot of fun as I’m almost as obsessed with food, as I am with books!
  3. I asked other authors and book bloggers if they would mind hosting my book on launch day. (Booking a tour with a professional service in advance is a great idea too. I didn’t do that this time, but often do).
  4. I posted similar book graphics to Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and ran a prize giveaway.
  5. I engaged in chat on launch day in book groups.
  6. I scheduled a newsletter to my subscriber list and ran a unique giveaway just for my subscribers.

I hope this helps and that if you have downloaded the book or bought a paperback, that the story fills your days with sunshine.  Genie, Ada and Cal were a lot of fun to write about and I’m now thinking about the possibility of writing a sequel.

Have an amazing week everyone.